


Becoming Eliot Spencer

by darklyndsea



Series: Becoming Eliot Spencer [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leverage
Genre: Blanket Permission, Gen, character welding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyndsea/pseuds/darklyndsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody wanted Xander Harris, so he remade himself as Eliot Spencer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Eliot Spencer

Xander had thought Buffy and Willow were over trying to make him quit Slaying, but after graduation they'd made it really fucking clear that they were grateful for his help with this one last battle (help? Who exactly planned the battle and made the bombs that killed the Mayor?), but he wasn't going to be "helping" anymore. But they could still hang out. Like he was their pet, to be taken out and played with when they felt like it but left behind whenever anything interesting was going on.

And they thought he'd come back to Sunnydale after that little speech? What did he have to come back for? There were dead-end jobs everywhere, and he sure as hell didn't have any friends to come back to. He took cash from Uncle Rory rather than the car he tried to give him, and Uncle Rory was so happy to see the last of Xander that he didn't even protest. Willow and Buffy wouldn't know he wasn't coming back for months.

Nobody wanted Xander Harris, not family, not friends, not women, so he wouldn't be Xander Harris anymore. Fake IDs were good for more than buying beer and avoiding any hacking Willow might feel tempted to do to "keep an eye on him"; they were a stepping-stone to reinventing himself. In one fell swoop he changed his name, hometown, and birthdate. Eliot Spencer might have the same body as Xander Harris, but he was a completely different person. He had the accent down; now he just had to decide everything else about himself.

It was freeing. There wasn't anybody else to tell him who he was, to try to make him act like had always acted before. He was free to be anybody he wanted to make himself. In a way it was terrifying, that first time, like homemade witness protection, but he'd always done best under pressure.

He'd thrown away all the rules of his old life. Why not throw away the laws while he was at it, and do something he was good at and could make a lot of money doing?


End file.
